True Story!

“True Story!” is…

A night of tantalizingly true tales told by rogue writers and nervy journalists. Takes place bimonthly in beautiful Atlanta. All readers also bring fascinating, sometimes funny, sometimes not-so-funny artifacts from their past—love letters never sent, replies from Shaun Cassidy’s fan club, etcetera—and tell the stories of those artifacts.

Do we have some rogue writers lined up for True Story #11 or what?

The answer is, yes.

See here.

Krista DERBECKER

Krista hails from Ontario, Canada, but has spent enough years in Georgia to consider herself a bona fide Southerner. She graduated from the University of Georgia with degrees in Journalism and Spanish, but please don’t ask her to translate anything as she seems to have only retained how to ask for directions and order more cheese dip.

She has written for Skirt! Magazine, The Atlantan and Creative Loafing, but soon after college, fell in love with Little Shop of Stories, a children’s bookstore in downtown Decatur where she works as the store manager. When she isn’t at the bookstore reading at weekly storytimes, organizing community Christmas tree lightings, and reminding people that the cute little bookstore in You’ve Got Mail went out of business, so please don’t say Little Shop is “exactly like that movie,” Krista holes up in her house to work on her book, The Patron Saint of Doubt, a collection of nonfiction essays about faith, family, and figuring out life.

Shannon MCNEAL

Shannon McNeal grew up listening to her grandfather, J.B. Cochran, telling tales about their family in Mobile County, Alabama. She inherited his talent for spinning tragedy into comedy and loves to share her stories about growing up in Alabama and her adventures after moving to Atlanta. If you love southern porch stories, you will love Shannon McNeal.

Shannon was born in lower Alabama, or as she likes to affectionately call it, LA. After the two yet-to-be explained years living in Ohio, her family moved back to Alabama, this time to the northern section of LA. Shannon was sent off to college before graduating high school, so to this day, technically, she is a high-school drop out.

Shannon graduated from Georgia State University with a degree in philosophy and a couple years later went off to Mississippi to study law so she could earn a living. Now back in the Atlanta metro area, she is having the time of her life telling stories.

Jason MYERS

Jason Myers does not mess. He grew up in Hagerstown. Where? It’s about an hour west of D.C. and Baltimore. He’s been trying to live Somewhere ever since. Bennington, New York (Brooklyn), Wilmington (no, not Delaware), and Atlanta. His writing has been published in Agni, American Poet, The Paris Review, Tin House, and several other journals. He is a Master of Divinity Student at Emory University, and a National Poetry Series finalist.